Ghost in the Citadel
by MovinTarget666
Summary: A new Guardian is chosen, one not exactly from earth... or the solar system in general
1. Chapter 1

Ghost in the Citadel

…

AN: Little look at a story I thought up about twenty minutes ago, don't know If I'll keep it up or not

…

_Life has a strange way of getting you new places,_ Liara T'soni thinks as she hides behind a large pile of debris, waiting for the end.

Her day had not started out with her hiding and running for her life, it had actually started quite nicely.

Reactivating a dormant relay to investigate what cultures may exist beyond.

Finding the scattered ruins of a new civilization on the small celestial dwarf that the relay was in geosynchronous orbit of.

Investigating said ruins.

Then the day had turned bad. There was a lot of screaming and bellowing near the base, with gunfire sounding terribly loud on the dead planet. When her guards had rushed off to investigate, they had told her to hide with the others. But she hadn't.

Of course not, if there were indigenous creatures here, she had to see them. _Stupid!_

She could beat herself up about it later though, for now, she had to change hiding places and move to a smaller corner, away from the strange machine monsters that had killed the guards and razed the base camp to ash.

She began to inch back, scared that the machines might find her as they marched their way past her particular block of concrete, but they passed with nary a glance and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"I don't think they saw us," A voice says from behind her.

The young Asari nearly craps her pants as she whirls around, terrified. She only just manages to keep from screaming. Thankfully, she is too startled to make a sound, and can only stare at the floating cube in front of her. Its single digital eye looked at her with what she could only call curiosity, and it zoomed at her, then vanished.

Liara looked around furtively for the thing, hoping it wasn't going to alert the machines that had just left.

"Don't worry, I'm still with you," The voice says again. _From insider her head._

Before she can emit any sound of terror the voice continues, "I will say, you are the strangest looking Awoken I've ever seen... but a Guardian is a Guardian."

"G-Guardian?" Liara asks with a small gulp.

"Yeah," The voice says, "Sorry I can't say more, but your friends need our help, and we need to find you a weapon if we hope to survive against the Vex."

"What are you?" Liara asks, unsure if she should listen to the voice in her head.

"I'm a Ghost," The voice says by way of explanation, "Well actually… I'm your Ghost."

…

"Ghost?" Liara asks as she picks up a discarded pistol from one of her dead guards, "Why are you in my head?"

"Well I can't well be hanging over your shoulder all the time," Ghost replies with a metaphorical shrug.

"I guess that makes sense," she concedes as she looks down at herself, and seeing only the thin environmental suit that was required to survive on the planet. She looks around, suddenly feeling naked, undefended.

"Pick up that piece of armor," Ghost tells her, and she sees a strange white square covering a loose bit of chestplate on the ground. With only a slight bit of hesitation, she does so.

Then watches in alarm as it seems to dissolve in her hands.

"Look down," Ghost tells her, and when she does she sees that her suit has bulked up in several places, "thought you might need a bit of extra protection.

"Thank you," She says as she breaths a calming breath, then she looks to the horizon, in the direction of where she knows her fellow scientists are hiding, and where the Vex are heading.

"If you run, we can reach your friends ahead of the Vex," Ghost tells her, "They only move fast when they need to, and they don't right now."

Liara nods and takes off at a sprint, surprised at how easy it feels to move and run.


	2. Chapter 2

Ghost in the Citadel Ch. 2

…

Liara sprints through the ancient city, diving through cracks, fissures, and holes with nary a backwards glance. The ease with which the Asari moves surprises the girl, as the casual nature in which she spins around leaps up and throws the largest singularity she had ever seen at the advancing Vex.

"Well," Ghost says as she dives behind cover to avoid the flying streams of red death, "At least we know what type of guardian you are!"

Liara almost asks what he means, and is only stopped from doing so by the sudden appearance of a Vex directly in front of her. With a yelp she lashes out, and with a biotically enhanced punch, vaporizes the deadly machine. With a gasp she feels energy she hadn't even realized she lost surge back into her as she takes aim once more, placing three shots into the eyes of three Vex.

She swings her gun around, but fails to spot any of the red eyed monsters coming at her, or anywhere near her.

Ghost flashes into existence behind her, "Vex signatures are… retreating?"

"Retreating?" Liara turns to her cube shaped friend in shock, and the little glowing box bobs up and down in a nod, "Why?"

"Scanning," He says as he erupts into a sphere of light. The little ball that makes up his eyes whirling around for a second before focusing on her, "Picking up three Guardian Signatures! The Vex are trying to head them off!"

"Where?" Liara presses.

"Approaching, about two miles out," Ghost tells her.

"Miles?" Liara asks

Ghost fixes her with a look, and zooms up to her faceplate and asks, "Is that what you're focusing on?"

Liara shrugs, not sure how to respond. Deciding to forgo the argument she instead asks, "How far to my friends?"

Ghost zooms back to a more sedate distance and looks around, then zooms to an almost imperceptible fissure, "They're in here!"


	3. Chapter 3

Ghost in the Citadel ch 3

…

Liara uses some careful biotics to shift the fissure open, and sees many of her fellow scientists hiding, peering cautiously around corners and debris. She waves at them, her clear face mask reassuring the terrified scientists.

Then ghost pops around the corner and zooms into the fissure before she can say a word.

There are screams as many of the scientists dive for cover from the small floating ball of light, and a few of the Turians jump up and try to get in the way. They are all surprised when the little rotating cube turns back to Liara and says, "Some of them aren't human! And they aren't trying to kill us!"

"I know," Liara rolls her eyes at Ghost, "Neither am I."

"Please," Ghost seems to roll his eyes, "I know the Awoken don't like to acknowledge where they came from, but you're still human in there."

"Actually," Liara interjects as she gently grabs Ghost away from a near hyperventilating Turian, "I'm not an 'Awoken' either. I'm an Asari."

Ghost rears back, then zooms directly in front of her faceplate and assesses her appearance. Then he floats back, bobbing in agreement, "Yup, should have seen it before. Sorry…"

"Sorry about what?" Liara asks in confusion.

"Sorry I thought you were an Awoken," He replies with a metaphorical shrug.

Liara smiles at her polite little friend and nearly responds when she hears a shout from outside. Ghost zooms to the entrance, looks out, then turns back to tell her, "It's the other Guardians, they're here!"

The Asari Guardian moves to the entrance and quickly spots the 'Guardians.' They are all roughly Asari shaped, with two leaning more towards a male Batarian or Drell type physique. They must be dual gendered then.

One of the Guardians, the more Asari shaped one, quickly spots her and waves. She waves back uncertainly. The three jog up to her and then start chatting with her in an incomprehensible language.

"Uh… Ghost," Liara starts, "What are they saying?"

Ghost looks at her, then back at the Guardians, "Wow, you really are an alien, huh?"


	4. Chapter 4

Ghost in the Citadel ch 4

…

"Okay, so you're an alien," The female Guardian clarifies, "and so are they. And you all came here to investigate Pluto?"

"Is that the name of this Planet?" Liara asks with a bit of excitement

"Yeah," the Guardian nods, then shakes her head, "But that's not important right now! We need to get you guys out of here!"

"Good idea," Ghost nods, then asks, "How?"

"The Fallen have one of their scout ships docked not too far," The bigger of the male guardians says, "We were on our way to deal with the crew when our Ghosts intercepted Vex transmissions."

Liara, by this point is confused, but not enough to ask awkward questions. Instead she tries for a friendly one, "So… My name is Liara T'Soni, what are yours?"

The smaller male responds first, "Names Hacket, Seven Hacket."

The bigger male steps up and answers, "Names David Anderson."

Liara looks to the female, who replies, "Shepard."

"No first name?" Liara asks

"I'm an Awoken," Shepard says by way of explanation. At Liara's look of confusion she goes on, "My first name is ridiculously long and complicated…. Even I hate saying it."

"Oh," Liara decides she really doesn't need to know that much.

Hacket shoulders his weapon and says, "Well, let's go get us a ship."


	5. Chapter 5

Ghost in the Citadel ch 5

…..

Liara ducks behind a corner in the massive cavern dividing the Guardians and the Fallen. She peeks around, and gets her first look at one of the new species she is about to initiate violent contact with.

The council would be so angry when they learn about this.

A bullet passing over her heard removes these thoughts from her head and she dives back into cover, looking behind her to make sure her fellow scientists were alright.

They were okay, cowering and hyperventilating in fear.

Seven was calmly picking Fallen off with a sniper rifle, and she watched as Anderson charged into a mass of the aliens and slammed himself into the ground. She is forced to turn away by the massive blast of energy and light, and catches sight of Shepard, blasting Fallen back with a shotgun.

"Ghost," Liara begins, "how many of the Fallen are out here?"

"Hang on," Ghost says as he pops into existence next to her, and flies above her little rocky corner, he ducks down as enemy fire peppers where he just was, "fifteen still standing. One of them is an Archon…"

"An Arch…" Liara is interrupted by a hand, most specifically the palm of a hand wrapped around her face.

…...

Liara opens her eyes and stares around in confusion, looking around. All around her is light, with the center sphere of Ghost directly above her. She tries to call out to him but can't seem to Speak.

Confused and a little scared, Liara tries to move from her current position, unfortunately, she can't. All she can move is her eyes, so she does…

...that's when she spots her body.

She silently screams in horror as she takes in the sight of what can only be her own corpse. She weeps, begs, cries, and prays all in the hope that she really wasn't dead.

Then she sees the light, and she hears Ghost speaking, "bringing her back!"

…..

Liara lands on her feet by instinct, and casts her eyes from side to side. She sees Shepard standing next to her, and the Awoken woman nods to her, "welcome back to the land of the living."

"What!?" Liara asks in horror, "what do you mean?"

"Oh, was that your first time?" Shepard asks in concern, and rubs her hand over Liara's shoulder, "don't worry, you'll get used to it."

She heads off, sheparding the scientists into the Fallen ship.

"Ghost… What just happened?" Liara asks with a quavering voice.

"you… Well, you died," Ghost tells her, "the Fallen Archon got a hold of you, and well… I don't want to say. But! Your light was stored in me, so with a little boost from Shepard's Ghost I was able to transmat you another body, and put your light back in."

"Oh… Is that all," Liara says as she blinks a few times, then collapses in a dead feint.


End file.
